That
Rune Factory: Frontier is at heart a casual game can't be denied. There is a noticeable lack of goals or progress here, suggesting that you are playing for the sake of playing, a principal tenet of the whole casual-game phenomenon. Setting up the entire story is the notion that your character follows his friend Mist to a strange town, finds that she has settled there, and decides to set himself up down the road from her house. Because that's what anyone would naturally do, right? Better that you just accept the story as "New guy moves to town" and leave it at that.
As new guy in town, you'll do what any new guy does, namely start growing turnips. If that sounds a bit Harvest Moon to you, it's because the origins of the Rune Factory series are tied to the same developer, Natsume. Harvest Moon fans will feel right at home, but there's something different here in that the feel is less cutesy and more reminiscent of a traditional RPG. Getting to know the girls around town immediately becomes a feature of exploration, and it's fun to watch your character go all red in the face and see stars when interacting with any female. If you make the right moves and spend time with a particular girl, you'll have the chance to get married. Before matrimony, you'll want to get some work done... like those turnips.
If turnips don't sound like your thing, you can graduate to many other crops and grow food in just about any area of Rune Factory: Frontier. There is a benefit to farming, which comes when you time your crops well and start noticing the floating spirits called runeys that cluster everywhere in the game. Collecting these runeys and placing them across various areas of the game will produce harmony and balance that helps your crops grow and confers other benefits. Make sure that farming is your thing, because there are few other ways to raise capital. Entering dungeons and battling monsters will reap some benefits, but the game pushes you toward capturing monsters and training them as help around the farm. It's all about the farm and the girls, in the final analysis. Patient players that want deeper gameplay than most casual games offer, and don't want the anxiety of battles with epic enemies and bosses that RPGs bring, may find the perfect balance here.